Feeding the Hungry

June 3, 2016

As part of our Food for Families program we buy food for several families then take it to their homes throughout the city. An old lady, a mom with a paralytic son, a family with a drunk father, the list goes on and on. They are the poorest of the poor in Tijuana. Our goal is to help them in their need and show them God’s love in that process.

We took food to one young mother’s home, if you could call it that. It was really just a shack directly across from the city dump. The smell of the dump is always a strong reminder of how hard life can treat you… a repugnant, nasty odor that fills every breath you take. We greeted all her kids as they came wide-eyed with hope to the door.

I remember visiting her home for the first time. She had asked us to come and help her decide if some food she had gotten was suitable for eating. Von and I ducked under the cloth they used for a door and into the poorly lit room. When we saw the dirty food she had collected from the dump to feed her children, my heart sank. There on the table was an old loaf of bread, a bloated-unmarked can of something, a few items that were discarded from stores because they had been smashed and some half eaten food that more fortunate families had discarded after they had their fill. As I looked on this I remember feeling sick. Not in disgust but at the thought that this is what she would feed her kids. At the same time though I realized that her children would eat this trash, or eat nothing at all. Hunger is a horrible thing.

That day we brought food to her family, but there is so much more to be done.